


all the days and nights that matter

by absopositivelutely



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, but it's mostly fluff, i just can't write anything without a tiny bit of angst, jake and amy just really love each other okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15687405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absopositivelutely/pseuds/absopositivelutely
Summary: Her hands are in his and when they turn to face the precinct, their friends, their family, she does not let go.(he will never let go.)





	all the days and nights that matter

**Author's Note:**

> so, i watched b99 in like two weeks and now it's just. like. completely taken over my life. pls accept this mess of a fic that is essentially me just screeching about jake and amy and gOd i love them a lot. shoutout to [visheretowrite](http://archiveofourown.org/users/visheretowrite/pseuds/visheretowrite) for getting me to watch b99 and letting me scream at her about each episode and for being the best beta reader as usual. 
> 
> title is from e e cummings _it is funny, you will be dead someday_ , which does not fit them but i just really liked the one line. also, i listened to [everything is magical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_y-j-FXuOQ) by jeremy messersmith on repeat while writing this. it's adorable and i would highly recommend.
> 
> enjoy!

 

* * *

 

i fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

— _the fault in our stars,_ john green

 

* * *

 

 

 

> _prelude_

he thinks falling in love should turn his world upside down.

he keeps expecting it to, waiting for one day where he’ll wake up and roll over and see her curled up next to him, or maybe see her across a crowded room, and have the breath knocked out of him because he’s so in love with her.

who she is, he does not know. what he does know is that charles is wrong, and he does not like amy, because he thinks he’d probably notice that sort of thing.

 

 

 

 

> _10:26 pm_

It is hours past the end of their shift, but that has not mattered to Jake Peralta for the past thirty-seven hours. He is pacing back and forth. There are dark circles etched under his eyes and there are empty mugs scattered around the room and there are maps marked with a tangle of black and blue pens pinned to the board and their unimpressive collection of evidence consisting of three blurry pictures and a singular incomplete fingerprint lying on the break room table and he looks up at the slow creaking of the door to see Amy peeking in hesitantly.

“Jake?”

Her voice is quiet and gentle and he is struck with an immense pang of longing. “Yeah, come in,” he says tiredly.

He keeps pacing.

Amy closes the door behind her softly. She is devoid of her usual pantsuit, wearing an NYPD sweatshirt instead. Caught between her fingers are two pillows, two blankets, and a set of clothes. She hands them to Jake and he’s so tired he doesn’t question it, just shakes them out in place of unfolding them. A gray shirt and black sweatpants. They’re his. “You went to my house,” he states. She nods and gives him a little half-smile and something deep in his chest constricts almost painfully.

“You keep your keys under your doormat,” she shrugs. “Not exactly the most creative hiding place.” She tosses a pillow and a blanket at him and grabs his hand, tugging until he stands up. “C’mon. We’re going to sleep on this lumpy couch, and then we’re going to solve this case together.”

(he wants to say no, but he wants this, he wants her, even if this isn’t everything he wants her as, he wants, he wants, he _wants,_ and he does not know if he will ever stop.)

And it’s times like these where his mouth feels dry and there’s a lump in his throat and he can’t help himself from staring at her with a soft smile and big eyes, and Amy smiles back at him looking confused, but there’s an undeniable fondness in the tilt of her brow, and maybe he’s not allowed to fall in love with her yet, or now, or ever, but he loves her, he _loves_ her, he does. She is his coworker, his family, his best friend, and if he’s not allowed to fall in love with her, that’s okay, as long as he can love her with every inch of him that can.

 

 

 

 

> _9:01 am_

“You are precisely one minute and twenty-three seconds late, Detective Peralta,” Amy announces, a smug grin on her face. He can’t help but notice that she hasn’t started working, despite the fact that she’s surely been here for at least ten minutes.

“Couldn’t start working without me, huh?” Jake says, tossing a lazy grin in her direction. She smiles and rolls her eyes, turning to her computer.

“I don’t need you to be here, that—” she waves vaguely at the clutter on his desk, “—gives me enough stress as it is.” What they don’t put into words, but what they’re both thinking about, is the day Jake went undercover. He’d cleared off his desk, old files and empty water bottles and police figurines all crammed into a box. Everything that made this desk the desk of Detective Jacob Peralta was gone. They hadn’t even let him leave his nameplate there.

 _(i’m coming back,_ he’d promised. she’d nodded and tried to smile. he’d pretended that her smile looked genuine.

 _i know you are._ they had stood there for a long time, looking at the disconcertingly empty desk. somehow it hadn’t hit him until then.

 _amy, wait._ _i want you to keep this. in…in case._

she’d looked at him fiercely. it is a look jake knows well, one that he would trust with his entire life. he is unsure and afraid and he does not want to admit to those things, but one thing he knows is a truth that he has always known with a certainty that settles deep in his soul. amy santiago is looking up at him with fire in her eyes, and he knows that he is coming home. she would make sure of it.)

They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about a lot of things that happened the day he left.

He had hoped for a lot of these unspoken things when he returned. He still doesn’t have them. What he does have in this moment is the Amy who waits for him before she starts working, the Amy who slingshots her hair ties at him when he flicks paper clips at her and then immediately demands for him to give the hair ties back, the Amy who is his best friend despite everything he’s said.

For now, he glances up at her to find her playing with the policewoman figurine he’d given her on that day all those months ago, rolling it back and forth between her fingers. It’s a familiar gesture that he recognizes with a jolt as something he does. Who picked it up from who, he isn’t sure.

He gives her a small smile. She smiles back.

Jake wants so much more than this. But today, it is enough. It has to be.

 

 

 

> _6:37 pm_

It still takes him by surprise, even though he should learn to expect it by now. This is not the first time they have pretended to be a couple for a case, after all.

_(i was gonna propose to you! on the brooklyn bridge, where we met.)_

“Sorry for springing the engagement and romantic stuff on you,” Amy tells him quietly. He tries not to think too much (cool lips pressing lightly against his cheek; fingers gripping his arm; the sudden emptiness when she pulls quickly away from his side—don’t think don’t think _don’t think)_ and forces himself to shrug it off.

_(brooklyn bridge? we met on the manhattan bridge!)_

“So, when did you guys meet?’

“Last year.” “Five years ago.”

The story they tell does not come easily to his lips like so many other stories he has told while pretending to be someone else. He’s thinking too much, he knows, but it’s easy, too easy, for him to pretend that this is Jake and Amy, sitting across from each other at a fancy restaurant, smiling softly at each other and holding hands across the table. It’s too much, this is all too much, and he knows he can’t stop staring at Amy and she’s probably regretting this until—

“He makes me laugh,” she says, and it feels like everything in the world makes sense. Amy’s eyes are brown and clear and warm and his throat is tight when he adds, “And, you know, there’s really no one else’s opinion who I care about more than hers, so.”

And if this is the last night he has with her, it is more than he could ever have asked for. But he does not want to lose her; would do anything, say anything, to pretend like she hasn’t just held his heart in her hands— _it was just a kiss, it was for work, it was nothing (it’s everything and anything and so much more)—_ and he knows, he _knows,_ that she has taken his soul and rewritten it and he cannot lose her, no matter what he has to do.

Because they keep finding each other, again and again. And everything is far from perfect when they finally find each other in the evidence room; this is not the last time they will be thrown apart, not the last time they will be lost and found, but he is kissing her and she is kissing him and there are questions hanging in the air still unanswered but if there is nothing else he can be sure of, at least he finally, _finally,_ has this.

 

 

 

> _3:18 am_

They have stayed up all night together working on a case, but those have been long nights, weighed down by the frustration of a solve hanging just out of reach and a bone-deep tiredness that quietly creeps in. Tonight is not one of those nights.

Tonight, they are lying in Amy’s bed, her head resting against his chest and his arm curled around her shoulders. It’s not the most comfortable position; her hair tickles the side of his neck and all the feeling in his arm is slowly melting away, but he does not dare to move.

(he keeps forgetting that he can have this now; that he’s allowed to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and hold her hand and kiss her forehead whenever he wants to; keeps forgetting that he’s allowed to be in love with her, and every time he remembers it’s like taking a shot of liquid happiness, of something warm and golden that burns brightly on its way down.)

Amy is laughing at something he’s said. He doesn’t remember what, but it doesn’t matter. They’re both balanced carefully on the edge between punch-drunk exhaustion and that exhilarating invincibility that inexplicably comes with the hours that hang in an undefined limbo between morning and night. Everything is perfect in these hours, and Jake thinks he could lie here forever and listen to Amy’s laugh, ringing out into the still night air.

(he is afraid that this is all he will get—that all this will come to an end, as everything does. but amy santiago is nothing if not stubborn and she will prove him wrong, time and time again.)

 

 

 

> _7:23 pm_

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Finish your paperwork?”

Jake snorts, making his way over to the couch where Amy is sitting. She hasn’t looked at him once since he’d opened the front door, instead staring determinedly at the TV with a tiny smile playing at her lips. He grins to himself, walking behind the couch and reaching out to loosen her ponytail with a gentle tug. She scowls, but she makes no move to fix it.

“Yeah, I finished it. No thanks to you,” he says, resting his forearms on the back of the couch on the opposite end of where Amy’s sitting. He leans forward. “You could’ve stayed to help because I’m your favorite person.”

“Somehow that’s true, but paperwork is an adult thing, Jake. Besides, I got us takeout so you wouldn’t have to wait.” She finally turns to look at him with that soft smile that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. He wraps his arms around her from behind and kisses her and it is a steady drum against his chest, a beat that whispers _I am home, this is home, you are home._

“Hi,” Amy says, breathlessly.

“Hi,” he answers. Jake bites his lip and smiles, a sudden wave of fondness rushing over him.

He attempts to climb over the back of the couch so he can sit with her. In his mind it’s a smooth vault over, but his foot gets caught and he ends up halfway on the floor. He catches Amy’s eye and they stare at each other silently for a beat. And then they both burst into laughter, the kind that Jake knows is going to make his stomach hurt, the kind where whenever you think you’ve calmed down it starts back up again.

“You _idiot,”_ Amy gasps out, beaming at him. He flashes her a goofy grin, grabbing her outstretched hand, standing up and flopping onto the couch next to her so he can hold her like he was going to before he fell over.

“I’m your favorite idiot,” he informs her delightedly. He kisses her lightly on the cheek and she leans into his touch, smiling uncontrollably wide. She looks up at him and starts to say something but breaks out into laughter again.

(it’s in this moment that jacob peralta knows he is in love with amy santiago. romantic-stylez and all. he knows this with a certainty that settles deep in the pit of his stomach like the ache that’s crept into his muscles from laughter; he knows this with a sureness as steady as amy’s bright gaze.)

 

 

 

> _11:11 pm_

Jake has never really believed in miracles. He’d made a wish at 11:11 once, so many years ago, sitting on the fire escape with Gina and staring out at the endless lights of New York City beneath them. They both knew it was hopeless, that his dad wasn’t coming back, that a thirteen year old’s desperate wish is not enough to reverse the times his dad has cheated on his mom, but _god_ if Jake doesn’t think every day about how maybe he wasn’t enough, maybe if he’d been something more, his dad would have loved them enough to stay.

Gina had given him an uncharacteristically long hug on that fire escape, and then she’d gotten up and declared that miracles are stupid and besides, Jake can be happy now, and he’d smiled gratefully at her and agreed. And she was right, Jake _can_ be happier, and his dad was wrong, and him and his mom _were_ enough, because love should never be about being enough for someone. He knows that now. But right now, staring at the dark ceiling above him, he does not feel like he’s enough.

The Florida air is heavy and uncomfortably warm, and there are so many stars in the sky that they could never hope to see with the city lights in Brooklyn, and it feels like all kinds of wrong, but the clock next to his bed says 11:11 and he closes his eyes and pours out his entire soul into a desperate plea to go home.

(hundreds of miles away, amy santiago is staring up at the dark ceiling of jake’s apartment, lying on his mattress with his blanket tangled around her legs and tear stains on his pillow. her phone is ringing in her hand. she knows she will not get an answer.)

He dreams of her, like he has for the past month. He whispers a quiet _I love you_ to her and she says it back and they say it to each other all the time now and he still cannot quite comprehend that anyone, much less Amy Santiago, could love _him._

(he’s afraid, when they finally see each other again, that everything between them has changed. and it has. their mistake was expecting it to stay the same. because they can’t reverse these months from happening, but he can fall for her all over again. because amy santiago will always, _always_ be more than enough for him.)

 

 

 

> _9:12 am_

Jake had imagined so many scenarios for when they finally moved in together. He has gotten some of them, like waking up in each other’s arms, and the inevitable compromises made over furniture kept and towels to be thrown away, and of _course_ it was decided by a bet that he ultimately let her win, but it’s the little things that keep surprising him. He had imagined lazy Saturday mornings and pancakes and tired smiles, but he had not expected so many other things.

Because he hadn’t accounted for the way the morning sun hits Amy’s face at just the right angle when they wake up, dark hair pulled into a lazy ponytail with loose strands framing her face, all soft edges and deep brown eyes blinking drowsily up at him. He hadn’t anticipated sliding through the kitchen on sock feet and having to take over cooking the pancakes because Amy Santiago, who tries her hardest to be the very best at everything she does, is absolutely atrocious when it comes to cooking. He hadn’t thought that Amy would drain half the bottle of maple syrup because _it’s a guilty pleasure, okay, you’re just as bad!_ and that she’d hum quietly as she pads through the apartment.

Hadn’t dared to hope for impromptu dancing around the kitchen, hadn’t ever dreamed of singing together at the top of their lungs and introducing each other to their favorite songs. She surprises him whenever a Taylor Swift song plays and she somehow knows every single word, and she almost cries when he admits he started learning Spanish through Gloria Estefan.

 _(jake, that is_ not _how you pronounce it!_ she insists, laughing.

_amy. ames. i’ve only ever heard the word in that song you like, okay? besides, you wouldn’t believe me when i said it wasn’t “starbucks lovers.”_

she snorts and rolls her eyes and slowly sounds out the word for him again. he’s trying, at least.

he doesn’t tell her that he decides to learn spanish because she told him one night after dinner with her parents that she used to hate her spanish-accented english, that she would stay up late at night with a flashlight under her blankets and a dictionary open on her lap, carefully pronouncing every word until it sounded like the way kids at school would say it. he doesn’t tell her that he decides to learn spanish because he’d seen the involuntary flicker of her eyes over to him when her dad calls her _mija_ and when her mom mispronounces a word _,_ the kind of deeply ingrained fear of judgement that he could never understand. he has known her for years and known rosa for even longer and it’s little moments like these that convince him it is only right to try.)

“I love you, you know,” he tells her, looking up from his pancakes and reaching out to take her hand. The morning light filters in through the kitchen window and shines a soft glow on her face and everything is perfect.

“I love you too.” She gives him that fond little smile that turns down at the corners.

“Gross, babe,” he teases, winning another chuckle. “C’mon, the pancakes are gonna get cold.”

 

 

 

> _10:15 pm_

“There’s a typo in this crossword puzzle!” Amy declares. He’s already thought of five jokes to say in response, but when he looks over at her, there is a sudden warmth that spreads through his chest. A beat passes, and he smiles at her, and she looks over at him, still frowning at the mistake, and her expression softens and she lets her head drop against his shoulder. He leans his head against hers and he can feel her smiling against his collarbone.

“Sorry,” she says, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “Too much?”

“Nah,” he tells her easily. There are hazy possibilities lingering at the edges of his vision (white dress, pressed suit; high peals of children’s laughter, clear as a bell; lazy mornings and wordless nights in bed; endless sunrises and sunsets and so much more, but always, always beginning with her hand in his), but he closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of Amy’s shampoo and promises himself, silently, that those dreams will come in time.

 

 

 

> _2:41 am_

Everything is not fine.

He wasn’t technically lying, earlier. Everything had been fine, because hearing her voice makes everything better for a second, but it is dark and Caleb sleeps quietly, too quietly, and Jacob Peralta feels impossibly alone.

(he would give anything for just a few more seconds with charles’s hugs, just a little too tight but radiating warmth; the smell of rosa’s leather jackets, laced with the sharp tang of her motorcycle’s gas; gina’s humming as she walks through the precinct, dancing over to whoever she wants to bother; terry’s laugh, bright and booming; holt’s low monotone, undercut by the softness in his eyes. just a few more seconds to memorize the curve of amy’s jaw under his lips, the crinkle at the corner of her eyes when she watches him when she doesn’t think he’s paying attention. just a few more seconds with everything he has ever wanted and everything that has ever mattered.)

He rolls over and stares at her picture and tries to remember (white dress, pressed suit; he will live, if only for this) how to breathe.

 

 

 

> _4:52 am_

It is quiet, too quiet.

Jake cannot breathe.

But Amy’s arms are there, soft words of reassurance murmured into his ear, and her hand rests on his chest, heart fluttering against her fingertips, and he is reminded that he is home.

“Sleep,” Amy mumbles, half-asleep herself, and Jake starts to apologize. She drops a gentle kiss on his shoulder and he feels more than sees her shake her head. “‘S’okay, Jake,” she whispers. “‘M’here.”

“I love you,” he chokes out, suddenly, fiercely. “Ames, I love you. So much.”

 _(forever_ goes unspoken, now.)

 

 

 

> _12:00 am_

Today has been quite possibly the most stressful day in Jake’s life. And in the end, it all comes down to this: him on one knee, her staring at him like he is the moon and the stars, the box in his hand burning into his palm.

(personally, he thinks that she is the moon and the stars and the sun and the galaxy and the universe and all of those things and more. that probably isn’t how it works, but he’d never been good at astronomy anyway. that was amy, with her eleven birthdays at the planetarium and her insatiable need to know things. jake thinks he’s come to understand gravity, at the very least, with how long he’s been falling for her.)

“Amy Santiago,” he hears himself say, as if from far away, “will you marry me?”

“Jake Peralta, I will marry you,” Amy says simply, and suddenly all the months he had been waiting for this moment feel too long, because this is as easy as breathing, and the world keeps turning, and Jacob Peralta and Amy Santiago are going to get married.

 

 

 

> _1:04 pm_

Jake didn’t actually think that wedding planning would be fun. The binder was Amy’s thing; the details of the wedding don’t really matter to him as long as, you know, they get married. Oddly enough, he ends up enjoying it, though he isn’t sure if it’s picking the exact color of the tablecloth that makes him happy or, more likely, the excitement that Amy radiates with every ingredient she picks out for their wedding cake.

But he thinks his favorite part about all this is the realization that he and Amy are going to get married. Sometimes the planning is a lot, and he’ll agree to whatever makes Amy happy, and then he’ll stare at her for a bit and realize that it’s really happening.

(he is going to spend forever and ever and a little bit more with amy santiago, and he wonders what he has done, in a past life or this one, to deserve this.)

Amy’s debating the merits of silk compared to burlap for wrapping her bouquet, and she’s the one holding the bouquet so he’s not too worried about which one he wants, though if she starts to panic with indecisiveness he’ll tell her he likes the silk. He thinks about his parents, who’d never learned to compromise; thinks about his friends back at the academy, who’d gone out for drinks to get away from their wives. Jake looks over at Amy again, and he knows they are doing something right.

“ _New York Times_ crossword puzzles from key dates in our lives!” Amy repeats for the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes, leaning back in her seat and beaming at Jake. He reminds himself to try and avoid looking at her so he won’t crash the car. “Did you see the lady’s face?”

“Yeah, she probably thinks you’re a nerd, which you are, so.” Jake allows himself exactly one second to flash a grin at her, and then returns his attention to the road because he is, completely objectively, a better driver than Amy, contrary to what she’d told him before they left this morning.

“At least _I’m_ not the one who asked for a Nakatomi Plaza wedding cake.”

“You’re the one _marrying_ the person who asked for a Nakatomi Plaza wedding cake.”

“That’s probably worse,” she muses, reaching over to interlace her fingers with his free hand resting on the center console. “Also, ‘objectively better driver’ my ass, I keep both my hands on the wheel at all times, thank you very much.”

“Ames, New York traffic moves at zero-point-five miles an hour,” he argues. Still, he lifts her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles without looking away from the road. She’s quiet for a bit, though he doesn’t have to look over to see the small smile playing at her lips.

“Jake?”

“Hm?”

“We’re getting married.”

“Noice.”

She snorts and tugs her hand out of his so she can punch him on the shoulder. “Love you too.”

(and he does, he does, he _does.)_

 

 

 

> _9:34 pm_

He is kissing her and she is kissing him and this is what he is going to have, today and tomorrow and all the days after. Her hands are in his and when they turn to face the precinct, their friends, their family, she does not let go.

(he will never let go.)

 

 

 

> _finale (or; the next movement)_

the truth is, they do not live in the movies. she wakes up before him more often than not and most mornings, he’s too tired to form coherent thoughts.

but they share quiet murmurs in the gray light of dawn and her cold hands trace the freckles on his back; they steal kisses in the evidence lockup and exchange smiles from across their desks, and jacob peralta learns that loving amy santiago is as easy as breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated :)


End file.
